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News Briefs

Honors Program Stops Full Scholarships

Yeshiva University will no longer offer full academic-based scholarships to its incoming  honors students, according to an email recently sent to high school seniors who had applied to the honors program for the upcoming academic year. The top tier of scholarship recipients will now receive a maximum of $30,000. It remains unclear as to whether this will affect the nature of the terms of the early-decision agreement, which previously committed only those who received full academic scholarships to matriculate to the honors program.

Liberato Market to Offer Kosher Food

The Commentator recently learned that the newly renovated Liberato Supermarket on the corner of 183rd and Audubon may begin selling a selection of Kosher cheeses, meats, and other specialty items by the beginning of the Spring semester. Liberato, previously a large bodega, recently underwent a large expansion, which the supermarket celebrated last month. Now, the Dominican-owned market boasts a medium selection of fruits and vegetables, along with frozen foods, dairy, staples, and household items. An increasing number of YU students can already be seen along its narrow aisles, and the addition of a Kosher section will pose a threat to nearby Just Kosher on 186th and Amsterdam and Key Food at 187th and Broadway.

YC Announces Expanded Summer Offerings

Yeshiva College will offer an expanded summer school program this year. YC will continue to offer “last year’s student favorites like Physics I and II, Intro to Bible, and Microeconomics,” said Summer director Dr. Gillian Steinberg. YC will also offer new course, including Medical Spanish, Ethics of the Use of Force in the 21st Century, Law and Society, and Nietzsche. Courses in Core categories INTC, COWC, NAWO and HBSI will all be offered, as well as introductory courses to majors and courses that fulfill old curriculum requirements and Syms requirements. According to Dr. Steinberg, “Tuition is affordable and housing is available, and you won’t have to worry about transferring credits.”

 Jack Fishman (YC ‘50), 83, whose medicine saved thousands

Dr. Jack Fishman, who developed a powerful medication that has saved the lives of tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people from fatal overdoses of prescription drugs and narcotics, died on Dec. 7 at his home in New York.

Born in 1930, Jack Fishman fled Nazi-occupied Poland with his family and found refuge in Shanghai, China. From 1942 until 1945 he attended the Shanghai Jewish School and, in 1948, immigrated to the United States and enrolled in Yeshiva College, studying chemistry alongside former President Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm (YC’ 49). Dr. Fishman rose to scientific fame for his research on steroid hormones and their role in endocrine-related cancers. He also developed the drug Naloxone that could effectively stop medical overdoses, a life saving medicine that is now in use in hospitals throughout the world.

Dr. Fishman served as a professor at Yeshiva University’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine and as a consultant to a number of highly prominent institutions, including the World Health Organization, the Food and Drug Administration and  the National Science Foundation. He was the recipient of the highly-prestigious John Scott Award for the synthesis and development of Naloxone. Dr. Fishman never forgot his roots and his debt to those who contributed to his success. He endowed the Dr. Jack Fishman Scholarship for Immigrant Students at Yeshiva College.

Dr. Fine’s Star Continues to Rise

Dr. Steven Fine, director of YU’s Center for Israel Studies and professor of Jewish History of the Greco-Roman period, has long been a presence at conferences and universities throughout the world. But in the last 18 months, Dr. Fine’s work has been featured in the pages of The New York Times, twice. Dr. Fine was first featured for his pioneering digital restoration of the Arch of Titus. Dr. Fine’s latest story involves a previously untranslated 1,600-year old Jewish tombstone near the Dead Sea, an article in the Biblical Archaeology Review, and a serendipitous correspondence with Reverend Carl Morgan of the Woodland United Fellowship, a church in Woodland, California. The article called Dr. Fine the “Jewish Robert Langdon,” referring to the fictional Harvard professor of the book and movie, The Da Vinci Code. The full article, “Chasing 5th century Clues From a Woman’s Tombstone,”  is available on the New York Times website.

Straus Center Receives $100,000 Grant for Zionism Programming

Yeshiva University recently announced that the Zahava and Moshael Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought, directed by Rabbi Dr. Meir Soloveichik, received a $100,000 grant from the Menachem Begin Heritage Center. The Begin Center in Jerusalem will sponsor a series of programs on Zionism and the legacy of Menachim Begin, the sixth Prime Minister of Israel. Hart Hasten, president of US Friends of the Menachem Begin Heritage Foundation; Phil Rosen, vice chairman of the Yeshiva College Board; and Hasten’s son Bernard, a member of the Yeshiva College Board, were instrumental in securing the grant.

The Straus Center has a host of activities planned for students in YU. Guest speakers will include Yehuda Avner, author of The Prime Ministers, and Rabbi Dr. Daniel Gordis, author of a new biography on Menachem Begin to be published in the spring of 2014. Rabbi Soloveichik is leading a RIETS seminar this semester and will teach an undergraduate course on Begin and Zionism in the spring. As part of the grant, Rabbi Dr. Soloveichik has begun a country-wide speaking tour about Begin and the history of Zionism. He delivered the keynote address at the annual Chanukah dinner at the Hasten Hebrew Academy in Indianapolis and also gave the Hart and Simona Hasten Lecture in Jewish Studies; “From Generation to Generation: Menachem Begin’s Covenantal Zionism” at the Hillel of Indiana University Bloomington.